The Coronation of the Virgin
Filippino Lippi·c. 1475
Historical Context
Filippino Lippi's Coronation of the Virgin from around 1475 is an early work painted when he was barely twenty but already showing the compositional intelligence and figure drawing skill that would make him one of the leading Florentine painters of his generation. The Coronation — Christ placing a crown on his mother's head as Queen of Heaven — was one of the supreme subjects of Marian devotion and provided a vehicle for depicting a celestial assembly of angels and saints surrounding the divine act. Filippino's early treatment shows his absorption of the Florence tradition established by his father and Botticelli, his figures displaying the graceful elegance of the Florentine school at its most refined.
Technical Analysis
Filippino's combined tempera and oil on poplar panel reflects his early training under Botticelli, with graceful linear rhythms, delicate gold highlights, and the refined color harmonies of the early Florentine Renaissance.
Provenance
William Blundell Spence [1815-1900], Florence, by c. 1860; sold February 1861 to William Schomberg Robert Kerr, 8th marquess of Lothian [1832-1870], Newbattle Abbey, Dalkeith, Scotland;[1] by inheritance to his brother, Schomberg Henry Kerr, 9th marquess of Lothian [1833-1900], Newbattle Abbey; by inheritance to his son, Robert Schomberg Kerr, 10th marquess of Lothian [1874-1930], Newbattle Abbey; by inheritance to his cousin, Philip Henry Kerr, 11th marquess of Lothian [1882-1940], Newbattle Abbey;[2] (Duveen Brothers, Inc., London, New York, Paris); sold 1940 to the Samuel H. Kress Foundation, New York;[3] gift 1943 to NGA. [1] See John Fleming, "Art Dealing in the Risorgimento. Part 3," _The Burlington Magazine_ 121, no. 918 (September 1979): 571 n. 28. According to a letter from Spence to the marquess of Lothian, dated 9 February 1861, preserved in the Scottish Record Office in Edinburgh (SRO GD 40/9/407/11), the panel was at that date already in the latter's possession; see Robert M.G. Wenley's written communication of 4 December 1989 in NGA curatorial files. [2] The panel is still cited as belonging to the collection of the marquess of Lothian in Bernard Berenson, _The Drawings of Florentine Painters_, 2nd rev. ed., 3 vols., ed. Fern Rush Shapley, Chicago, 1938: 2:147; presumably it was sold shortly after the death of the 11th marquess in 1940. [3] Fern Rusk Shapley, _Catalogue of the Italian Paintings_, 2 vols., Washington, D.C., 1979: 1:260. See also The Kress Collection Digital Archive, https://kress.nga.gov/Detail/objects/2110.
